


To Be Human

by Carnadine (FuriousLatte)



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games), Dark Souls I
Genre: Crymax, Emotional Sex, Emotional Solaire, Gay Sex, M/M, Rough Kissing, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 19:58:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15736329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuriousLatte/pseuds/Carnadine
Summary: The Chosen Undead has nearly gone Hollow -- can Solaire bring him back from the brink? Solaire x Chosen Undead (M) featuring extremely romanticized game mechanics!





	To Be Human

There was a bolt pierced clean through his chest.

Its deadly point scraped the bone of his shoulder with every step, but Kes could not truly feel it. It simply weighed on him, the sensation of sharpness against sinew and flesh something he was merely aware of. He felt no pain. He spilled no blood.

But he’d made it inside, away from the wind and dizzying heights. He could sense a flame not far away, its power thrumming through the wall beside him. It had drawn him, kept him focused, kept him sane

He found the door, his hand found its knob, and with a creak on uncoiled hinges, Kestryl pushed inside.

The room within swelled and tilted under his feet, but there it was, the bonfire, casting soft shadows along the room’s walls. One shadow moved suddenly, yet even with his mind nearly lost to him, he realized that it wasn’t a shadow at all but a man, standing upright at the sudden intrusion. The man stared a moment, then in a burst of unlikely swiftness he was at Kestryl’s side, a bucket-helmed bulwark hauling him up just as his knees gave out beneath him.

“Kestryl?” The man’s voice cracked with recognition and worry. A sick sensation of weight and sharpness scraped along his insides, and Kestryl watched as the enormous bolt clattered to the ground, freed from his shoulder. “Kestryl, by the Sun, what’s happened to you?”

Only then did Kestryl remember his name. Solaire. He tried to say it, but his mouth only murmured a heavy slur. Solaire—! “Sss,” he managed, nothing but a ghastly hiss.

He was losing himself. His mind swam, a blur of death after death after death. Falling. The burn of electricity along his stomach. The strange emptiness in his chest where the bolt had been. The sense that there had been many more bolts before it, struck right through him, spilling his bloodless and pale innards. Falling again, the world rushing away as he wakes up, screaming, in yet another dream —

Solaire lowered him down near the fire. Outside, Anor Londo was blindingly bright, but somehow not warm at all. Cold, even. Kestryl stared into the flame, and the room stopped spinning, at least a little.

“You should rest, friend,” said Solaire, raising a slender-fingered hand towards Kestryl’s face. “Your helm — you’ll breathe a little easier without it — if I may?”

“Nnn,” Kestryl’s mouth moved reflexively, trying for ‘no.’ What must he look like, beneath the cold steel of his armor? How many times had he fallen? How many times had he been skewered, crushed, how many times had he woken up, skin leathered and grey? Dull as the fear was, it was enough to jerk Kestryl’s near-skeletal hands into motion, gripping Solaire by the wrist.

“N-No,” he managed, jaw stiff as a stone. “Please.”

Solaire peered at him, though Kestryl could not see his expression underneath his helm, only shadow.

“You’re going Hollow.”

Hollow — gone and empty, a husk without purpose, mind like dust. Yes, that was the word. Perhaps this was it, then, the end of his journey. Perhaps he’d rest. Perhaps Solaire would draw his sword, cut him down, and mercifully pluck up what was left of his Soul—

Waiting for the sting of a blade, he didn’t process that Solaire had swept back his own helm and set it aside. He’d never seen the man before, not really. Solaire was a tabard bearing an expressionless sun, a bucket helm, and a gleaming red feather. But here, now… Solaire’s golden hair was mussed from the weight of the helm, a strand or two swept back behind his ear, the rest tugged back and held with a simple leather binding. A thin glow of stubble fringed along his jawline. Blue eyes searched him, and the fire felt warmer, suddenly.

“Here.” Solaire held out a hand, fingers curled to keep something in place. In his palm danced a fleeting shadow, almost nothing, gone when Kes tried to focus on it too long. A Humanity. Solaire cupped it gently, as though it may escape, were he too careless. “Quickly.”

Solaire took Kestryl’s hand, coaxing it around the tiny shadow. Then, he lowered their entwined hands into the bonfire. The shadow hissed, the flames seemed to breathe deeply, and then —

A nauseating jolt, like waking up to a too-loud sound, or coming up from underwater after too long without air. Everything muted, every faraway thought and sensation rushed to the surface all at once. Kestryl’s body wracked and shuddered with the force of it.

“Steady, now,” Solaire tightened his hand on Kestryl’s his hand in the fire before them. “It is a terrible thing, to come back from the darkness. You must stay with me. You must remember,” he said, “what it is to be Human.”

Solaire brought his free hand to rest upon Kestryl’s ruined, limp shoulder. “Remember your body.”

Where he’d been numb, pain flooded every nerve. Pain where every spear had found its mark, pain where every bone had cracked and shattered. The wound in his shoulder bloomed with a fresh, searing hurt. Beneath Solaire’s hand, Kestryl’s muscles writhed and spasmed. 

“Your breath,” said Solaire, and he traced his hand to the base of the other man’s neck. A groan rattled up from his throat, first a panicked, animal sound, then trembling breaths that began to steady beneath Solaire’s fingers.

His touch moved down Kestryl’s chest, grazing the tattered leather of his breastplate. “Your heart,” he murmured, and only then could Kes feel the blood pounding in his head and ears. His heartbeat, suddenly deafening. Solaire’s palm pressed flat against his breast and his eyes fluttered half-closed, listening, feeling his body return to life.

“And…” Solaire’s fingers slipped free from Kestryl’s in the fire, and with both hands he reached to coax Kestryl’s helm back. This time, Kestryl did not stop him.

“Your—”

The metal helm slid from his head to the floor beside them, clattering.

“Soul.”

Solaire took Kestryl’s face in his hands. “Look at me,” whispered Solaire. "You are still here. You are not Hollow. You are Human.”

Kestryl stared at him, his entire body trembling. The grey fog in his mind slowly turned to the red and gold of warm morning. The pain subsided to a dull ache, and his breath steadied. His heart beat strong in his chest. Human. But still Kestryl trembled. He was cold, so cold.

And so he reached for the Sun.

He touched Solaire’s face with both hands, shuddering at the sudden heat in his palms. Like a struck match, the warmth crept up his arms, tantalizing, and he wanted — needed — to be closer.

Solaire’s eyes widened and his cheeks flushed in the firelight, but he did not pull back. Kes brushed a stray golden hair from his cheek with a thumb.

“Solaire,” Kestryl spoke. “Solaire.”

“Aha! There you are. I knew you were in there, somewhere.”

For a moment they stayed still, mirrored, until Kestryl’s mind caught up with him. With a rush he understood their closeness and the way their foreheads touched, and how their lips nearly—

He pulled back, finding his voice, clumsy and rambling. “Oh, Gods, Solaire. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my mind… I wasn’t able to think, and...”

Solaire’s eyes seemed to focus out of a dream. For a moment Kestryl stumbled again, taken by him, as the other man smiled gently. “No worries, my friend. You were lost. And now… you are not.”

A heavy silence gathered like cold between them, and Kestryl’s heart, newly beating, felt as though it might tear through his ribs, out of his chest, and stop altogether. “Thank you,” he managed.

Solaire smiled. “Nonsense, my friend. As though I could let you carry on like that! You hardly need thank me.”

“I do. Some might’ve just… put an end to it,” Kestryl said. Curiosity tugged at him. “Why didn’t you?”

When his voice had come from beneath his helm, Kes heard a smile in Solaire’s every word. The Knight of the Sun, faceless, seemed an ever-jolly companion, all mirth and encouragement.

But now, with his helm at his side, Solaire looked as though Kestryl’s words had struck him like a blow. His eyes widened, only for a moment, and then his mouth crooked in a half-smile. “Would you have… preferred it?”

Kestryl considered. “If I were too far gone,” he said after a moment, “It would be a mercy. And if there were any strength left in my Soul I’d be glad for you to have—”

If he’d struck a blow before, now he’d drawn blood. “You jest. Surely.”

“I don’t mean to,” Kestryl said after a moment, now uncertain of his every word. He did not like the way he felt he might shatter something fragile, the way Solaire’s face read like a book. He gestured to the fire. “Surely you should’ve saved the shadow for yourself.”

But that was the wrong thing to say, too. Solaire flinched. Kestryl thought, just maybe, it had been better when he couldn’t form a single word.

“It’s rather cruel,” Solaire said, “To nearly kiss a man, then tell him you’d rather he killed you!”

His face growing hot, Kestryl protested, “Solaire, that isn’t what I…”

“Please listen to me,” Solaire said, smile gone. “I would rather our worlds never cross again than ever find you too far Hollowed.” His mouth a thin line across his face, Solaire met Kestryl’s eyes.

“Solaire.”

“Our worlds may entwine, we may call upon each other in battle, and yet,” Solaire said, looking out the window. “Ours is a path of solitude. Even here, in Anor Londo, it is cold. Bright, but so dark. Can you imagine? To come to a place so radiant as this, and still — and still know you are—?”

“Alone,” Kestryl finished.

Solaire let his smile creep back onto his face, but it bore no mirth. “Alone.”

It didn’t suit Solaire, speaking so joylessly. Kestryl didn’t know what to say. Solaire must’ve noticed, because he smiled again, trying to ease the weight what he’d said. “So please, my friend… never speak of such things that darken the brightness of our acquaintance! I can hardly stand it.”

They sat in silence for what felt like years, Solaire’s features gentle and warm in the firelight. Kestryl could not help but remember the way his skin had felt beneath his fingertips. The way that, even through the scream of everything that made him human rushing to his surface, he’d wanted to lean forward, to close the distance between his own wretched, twisted form and Solaire’s glow.

His heart, he realized, hadn’t stopped pounding. He drew a deep breath. “We aren’t alone now,” Kestryl said.

Solaire flushed — or maybe the red in his cheeks was a trick of the light. “Indeed, we are not.”

Kestryl reached a hand to touch Solaire’s face. Solaire shivered, and Kestryl kissed him.

It was a mere brush of the lips, but Kes felt something kindle in his chest, warm and flickering like a tiny flame. As he met Solaire’s gaze a gust of fear threatened to extinguish it — was this, perhaps, too far? But then Solaire smiled, radiant, and leaned in, pressing their lips together.

He’d only come back to his senses moments ago, but Kestryl lost himself again. He felt the shaking uncertainty in Solaire disappear as he grasped desperately at Kestryl’s ragged leather armor, pulling him closer, and Kestryl responded by pressing harder against his lips, clumsy and imperfect, again and again.

“Solaire,” he breathed, “Solaire.”

“Gods,” Solaire hissed, finally at a loss, voice crackled. “I…”

The fire in Kestryl seared hotter as Solaire’s arms circled his neck. Kes’ hand slipped down the Knight’s front, to his waist, to the slant of his back and the curve of his hip. Warmth — so sublime the simple feeling of heat could be, here in a land of dying fire! With Solaire grasping, pulling, and Kestryl pushing, seeking, they found themselves on the floor, Solaire on his back and Kestryl atop him.

Solaire’s hands had made their way to the tattered leather of Kestryl’s belt, shaking as they unwound its single knot. His urgency only fueled Kestryl’s flame, and he pressed kiss after kiss to Solaire’s neck, each pleasured sound in the other man’s throat like a spark to dry leaves.

His belt came loose and the lower half of Kestryl’s armor shrugged to the floor. Kestryl watched Solaire’s eyes fall on his exposed skin, his arousal pressed hard against the meager cloth of his undergarments. Blushing scarlet, Solaire froze.

“Forgive me,” he half-laughed, a nervous mania in his voice Kestryl could have never imaged. “If my dreams have run away with me, I—”

“Solaire,” Kestryl growled as he began fumbling at the heavy clasps of the Knight’s armor. “Don’t stop. You’ll drive me mad.”

Soon, between desperate kisses, he’d slipped Solaire free of his chainmail prison. He used one hand to pull away the Knight’s tabard, kissing the scarred skin of his chest, and pressed the other between his legs.

“Oh,” Solaire made a sound like a groan and a cry, tilting his neck back. The fire in Kestryl’s chest threatened to rush through him, drown him in flame. He took Solaire into his hand and stroked, hard — perhaps too much, as tears broke the corners of Solaire’s eyes, even as he moaned.

“Gods,” Solaire breathed, “Be gentle. It’s been — ahh — so long—!”

He was beautiful. Kestryl slowed a moment to take in the sight of him, golden hair coming loose in its tie, blue eyes glistening, raw desire flushing his pale cheeks.

What wonder, Kestryl thought, to be Human.

What a curse to know it would not last.

The thought of it — the impending cold, the slipping of his mind — drove him hurriedly onward. He could not let the fire in him go out, could not let the moment slip away. He maneuvered onto his knees, bracing himself between Solaire’s legs. “Solaire — can I—?”

“Please,” Solaire begged, “Yes. Gods, yes.”

Bending to kiss him, Kestryl wrapped one arm around Solaire’s shoulders and pulled him close. Solaire nestled his head against Kestryl’s neck and gasped into his ear, breath hot. He held the Knight against him as they joined, Solaire’s entire body shuddering as Kestryl pressed inside him.

Kestryl had to steady himself to keep from spilling all at once, the taste of Solaire’s sweat and skin and his sweet voice overwhelming. But Solaire was a tender soul, and Kestryl could not stand the thought of hurting him. With every shred of self-control he could muster, Kestryl rocked his hips gently, kissing Solaire’s throat with every thrust.

Solaire’s hands dug into his back, still clothed in leather’s they’d both been too hasty to remove. Then he felt Solaire’s teeth on his ear, and his careful pace quickened in response. “Solaire,” he growled. “Solaire.” Solaire’s mouth moved down to his neck, flicking his tongue against his skin, and Kestryl realized that for all Solaire’s gentle, flustered shyness, he could truly drive a man to madness. 

The fire in Kestryl seared and blistered. He pushed forward until he lay Solaire onto his back, then took the other man into his hand, coaxing and stroking as he thrust into him. Solaire’s back arched. It seemed any touch was almost too much for him, that his longing simply could not stand it.

He thought Knight’s words lost to pleasure, but through the gasps, the man was whispering: “My sun. My dear sun.”

And that was too much for Kestryl. With a rough gasp, Kestryl’s fire erupted, and he burned from the inside out. He moaned his lungs ragged and his throat raw as he spent himself, vision spotting gold and blue. It was enough to send Solaire over the edge, too; he cried out and spasmed and released across his chest in a copious arc.

In the haze that followed, Kestryl wasn’t sure how he found himself lying on Solaire’s shoulder, gazing into the fire beside him, watching the flames dance. He wasn’t sure how long he’d laid there. It had happened so fast — too fast, perhaps. He should have savored it, should have lingered on the taste of Solaire’s lips, the golden sweep of hair fanning out beneath him, the shine of tears in his eyes —

But there wasn’t time, and there may never be time again.

“Are you alright?” Solaire asked him, voice fuzzy and far away.

“Fine,” he murmured. Then, without thinking: “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“For before,” Kestryl said. “For nearly… losing myself. For asking you to…”

A pause. Kestryl could hear Solaire’s heartbeat quicken in his chest, and he knew without looking at him that the Knight was smiling — or trying to. “Well! I must say, you’ve made quite the ah, gesture of good faith. Apology accepted!”

Another length pause. The fire crackled in the silence.

“Solaire,” Kestryl murmured. “Promise me the same.”

“Oh?”

“Promise me I’ll never find you too far gone.”

Dimly, he felt Solaire’s hand tangle into his hair, and he closed his eyes with a pleasant shiver. “By the Sun,” Solaire said, “You have my word.”

And Kestryl believed him.

****


End file.
